I was wondering how many people who don't bring generators and such to keep food cool/cold/frozen take dry ice? I've seen it mentioned on here somewhere before, but now I can't find the thread. If anyone does bring it, where do you get it from??? I've heard an ice chest would last nicely for the week in the heat. This is the route I'm planning to take, I'd just like to get some feedback. Anyone have experiences to share on the subject?

Dry ice is great for keeping things frozen, not so good if you just want to keep things cool. I took 50 pounds in my poorly insulated 104qt cooler last year and it kept the ice cream frozen until Saturday. I'll have to try out the tips listed next year, maybe I can squeeze an extra day or two out of it. You'll need one cooler for regular ice and non-frozen items, one for the dry ice.

Don't buy it from a grocery store. They charge too much. Get it from an industrial gas supplier for much less. The local Airgas shop had a cooler full of 25 lb blocks for $11 each.

Dork wrote:Dry ice is great for keeping things frozen, not so good if you just want to keep things cool. I took 50 pounds in my poorly insulated 104qt cooler last year and it kept the ice cream frozen until Saturday. I'll have to try out the tips listed next year, maybe I can squeeze an extra day or two out of it. You'll need one cooler for regular ice and non-frozen items, one for the dry ice.

Don't buy it from a grocery store. They charge too much. Get it from an industrial gas supplier for much less. The local Airgas shop had a cooler full of 25 lb blocks for $11 each.

I have heard there may be places where you can bring the stuff you want frozen to the gas supplier and they will apply the dry ice to it and freeze it for you. Is that true? Sounds strange, but I can imagine showing up with a cooler full of stuff the night before we are to leave and just getting the stuff frozen solid. Would be better than buying ice on the playa every day.

You could also freeze your stuff solid at home and use plain old ice. That's
what I've done the years I wasn't running a community kitchen and it
worked fine. Better when I was the only one opening the coolers, of
course, but fine when there were 30 of us rummaging for snacks too.

If you freeze your stuff, put in dry ice, and seal and insulate the cooler, it
should keep from Friday to Thursday pretty much frozen solid. If your
cooler is not well-insulated, or you must open it daily, it'll be less.

Hello
I see alot of people pondering the use of dry ice. Dry ice is very good but very expensive. I have found a large ice chest with the bottom lined with block ice really does the trick and is much cheaper. the only precaution with block ice is that if you dont leave the drain open some things can get soggy. if you wrap your food and either zip lock ot or place it in tupper ware you should be fine. Ohhh yeah! leave the drain open or drain your ice cheast once a day and you shouldnt have any problem. Oh yeah! keep your ice cheast out of he sun and of of the ground to protect it from the heat. Hope this helps everyone. I used block ice and it rocked keeping my food frozen for the first 7 days and super cold the last three days.

The idea I get is that you take an ice chest, put some block ice in it and then make sure everthing that goes into it is wrapped up well as not to get soggy. Keep it off the ground by atleast 6 inches and keep it under good shade and everything will be good. I have talked to multi people say that is the way to go. Dry ice is good keeping things froze that need to stay frozen (Ice Cream and such).

I don't mean to sound critical Shiny, but that is about the worst advice I have ever read. Dry ice is about a buck a pound, lasts the entire week if you show even a smidgin of common sense and care, and your food will not get soggy. But it will freeze Bombay Blue Sapphire Gin solid.

Dry ice is necessary if you want to keep something below 32 degrees, such as ice cream. For normal use, regular ice is probably a better deal and is definitely easier to work with. No worries about freezing stuff you don't want frozen.

You can get dry ice for less than a dollar a pound at industrial gas suppliers as long as you don't mind getting it in 25 pound blocks. 50 pounds costed me $21 last year.

Well If you really need to freeze things (ice cream etc..) dryice sounds like the best way to go. I didnt know you could get it so cheap. Thanks, I guess maybe I will do a mixture of both. In the past when i used block ice it kept things pretty chilly I even had block ice left when I got home. If dry ice works even better so be it.

I'll bring a cooler full of frozen 1 gallon plastic Milk Jugs. If they're filled about 3/4 or 2/3 with water when they freeze they should expand but not burst. I will then black a sheet of dry ice in that same cooler, this will keep all of those frozen gallons frozen. Each day I'll take one of those frozen gallons into the other cooler in which I'll keep food & drinks. Over the course of that day that 1 gallon of ice will keep the cooler cool and thaw into on gallon of Ice water for the next morning.
The next day I'll fill my camel back etc with this ice water and place another frozen jug in the food cooler. This process worked perfectly! Always had Ice water, never needed to fill the food cooler with ice which of course kept all the food contained with-in dry, and that one piece of dry ice lasted the whole week, as the cooler containing it was opened only once a day!!!

I did used frozen one gallon water jugs in 2002. They worked great. They are so thick that they take a few days to melt. Without dry ice they stayed at least partially frozen for about four days. A combination of dry ice and gallon jugs seems to be a winning combination.

Another idea is to use re-freezable blue ice packs. You can re-freeze them on the dry ice once they melt. I haven't heard of this lasting more than 5 or 6 days though. For those of us who are there for 10 days or more, that will not do. Maybe an untouched reserve cooler with dry ice, that is not opened until wednesday or thursday.

----------------------------
yesterday was unique
today was the same
----------------------------
www.cypresslounge.com

griffin wrote:I did used frozen one gallon water jugs in 2002. They worked great. They are so thick that they take a few days to melt. Without dry ice they stayed at least partially frozen for about four days. A combination of dry ice and gallon jugs seems to be a winning combination.

Another idea is to use re-freezable blue ice packs. You can re-freeze them on the dry ice once they melt. I haven't heard of this lasting more than 5 or 6 days though. For those of us who are there for 10 days or more, that will not do. Maybe an untouched reserve cooler with dry ice, that is not opened until wednesday or thursday.

Those frozen ice packs come in handy. If you get the soft shelled one ( the hard ones would work too i supposed ) and freeze them and then place them in your camel bag against the bladder nice cold water

We have been doing this for the last five years, have never had to go to Camp Arctica, and here is how it has been: For four of us per RV (if you are in tents, subtract two or three days from this), one 130-gallon ice chest with five seven-pound bags of ice on the bottom, 30 pounds of dry ice in the middle, and three 20-pound bags of ice on top will keep for six days on the playa if kept in the shade and modestly insulated. So multiply that by two for eight of you. Also have an icechest already filled with your too-be-consumed drinks and fill that with regular ice. Freeze any OJ and jugs of water you can (those that won't be drank for at least three days) and they can keep other perishables cool. If you are tenting it, bring along duct tape and tape the lids of your dryice container shut. This will add another 48 hours to its overall usefulness. Now if you have to go to Arctica, make sure without fail you have an icechest to carry your bags of ice back to camp in (they melt unbelieveably fast, or so I have been told) and if you're more than a mile away, some kind of insulation. I hope this helps.

we usually bring $10 a day for ice at BM. -(that's icing a good amount of cheap beer as well).
dry ice was good in the past, but limited to your keeping it cool factor.
i'd say go for the ice at BM and know that the proceeds go to a good thing.
-b

Ice was $2 per 5lb. bag last year at Camp Arctica. And in addition to what Dr. Pyro recommends, if you can raise your ice chests off the ground - stick 'em on a table or pallet or milkcrates or something to get some air between them and the floor - you'll probably get another day out of it.

I usually bring 2 icechests - 1 full of dry ice, one with 2/3 food and 1/3 dry ice. Placedff the ground, they lasted me a good 9 days (I come for setup & cleanup).

The best thing about the dry ice is that it just vaporizes, instead of leaving you with marinated greywater.

This is my first burn and I seek advise. I am an experience camper, but never for longer than 3 days and never in the middle of the desert. I live in the desert so understand about climate, temps, winds, dust, etc but since I live in a house with electricity and a fridge, have never had to figure out a way to keep food fresh/frozen for any length of time. I have been reading everything I can about using dry ice and a separate cooler as our "freezer" and I think I have the basics down. What I would like to learn is what your experiences with dry ice on the playa have taught you. Yes, trying to learn from your mistakes! Isn't that one of the many pieces of adivse you have already given?
Anyway - do and don'ts of dry ice would be most appreciated!

1. One larger piece of dry ice works better and last longer than 2 smaller pieces.

2. Whatever you put in the dry ice cooler will stay frozen, so if you want to cook that steak tonight, better transfer it to the regular cooler the day before.

3. Dry Ice will FREEZE your stuff, so don't put anything in there that you don't want FROZEN.

4. Don't open the dry ice cooler unless you absolutely have to (once a day is great). Label what you have in their on the outside and cross it off the list when you use it, this helps prevent "peeking".

If you pick up dry ice some length of time ahead, be advised that it will be displacing the breathable air in your car with CO2.....Not a big danger unless you have a big chunk, and like to keep yer ride buttoned up tight, but there it is. Wear gloves when handling it, too, and avoid the temptation of making "mad scientist drinks" with chunks of it in your beverage container- If corked up tight it will BURST the container, and if it gets into your mouth or down your throat it will REALLY hurt you.
It's a lot of fun to play with, though. You can make a cool layer of fog in your dome or tent, and it'll fog more if kept in warm water. Put a colored light down by the floor and watch the effect. A laser pointer and some little mirrors or mirror balls will do wonders in fog!